Getting What You Ask For
by FirstYear
Summary: An argument between Snape and his soon to be ex...written for Hogwarts Online Forum


**Disclaimer: Not mine**

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**For the Hogwarts Online Forum…three prompts… when pigs fly, argument, and leaving. **

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**Getting What You Ask For**

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Severus Snape stood looking down the elf, a thunderous expression of anger and loathing on his face, his hands fisted behind him. The small elf took on the same stance and glared right back, the only outward appearance of fear was a slight trembling of her knees. He felt like a fool arguing with an elf, but was not about to back down, not again, not this time.

"You do know that you are fighting a losing battle," Ellen said from the doorway, where she stood and observed the scene in front of her, wiping her hands on her apron.

"She needs to learn her place," he ground out as the elf popped off.

"She does it because she doesn't like it when you drink," Ellen said flatly. "I am sure if you asked for tea or a cold drink she wouldn be more than happy to collect it."

"I do not like cold drinks and I do not want tea," he spat at her.

"Oh stop your pouting." She walked over and handed him his tumbler of firewhisky. "Here, drink. I no longer care what you do. Maybe if you drink enough you'll pass out. At least you'll stop talking."

"This is not about what I drink, is about her failure to do as she is told."

"Sure it is," she said tersely as she picked his dirty clothes up from the floor, and threw them in the corner for Millie to launder. 'She'll do what she wants."

"She will learn or she will leave as surly as you," he said disdainfully. ,

"Right...and Hagrid is teaching the pigs to fly," she snorted a laugh. "Now come eat, dinner's ready and I want to finish up so I can pack the dishes away tonight. I'm leaving in the morning." Ellen gave him that look that said _do it now or else_, before she headed back to the small kitchen he had added on to his lab.

They sat in silence, eating dinner, glancing at each other occasionally, avoiding eye contact. Ellen gave in first and broke the silence as she stood and took her plate to the sink to wash and pack it away.

"You know it's best if I leave before the students come back." She sighed as she slid her plate in a packing crate then returned to the table to collect his. "You said yourself, on several occasions, that you would be better off without me. The divorce has been approved, so there is no point putting it off."

"I never said I wanted this." He sneered at her, but did not clarify if he meant the marriage or the divorce, and then stood up to leave the table. "The sooner you are out the better."

"Yes, Severus, you can have all this." She waved her arm around his dungeon quarters. "Once I am out of your way all your riches are safe and I will not longer be so bold as to touch your precious books."

"Where will you go?" He asked crossing his arms and scowling at her.

"I've made plans." She turned back to the sink, not looking at him. "Furthermore, I don't find it is any of your business."

"I am still your husband, I still…."

"Oh, no you don't." She turned on him. "Don't you dare pull that shite on me! You have never been a husband, you horse's arse. Don't think you can start now."

"You, my _dear,_ have never been a…"

"Shut up, don't you dare say it," she screamed at him, tears springing to her eyes. "Don't you dare throw it in my face again. I have tried, damn you all to hell, I have tried for longer than I should have."

She untied her apron and threw it on the table as she stormed in to the sitting room. Snatching her robes, she headed for the door.

"It is too late for you to go out alone." Severus moved quickly, cutting off her path to the door. "While you are still here you will act appropriately."

"Appropriately? You are the one to talk," she spat. "How appropriate is it to sit down at the Hogs Head until all hours?"

She turned and ran to her room slamming the door behind her, pushing a chair to the door, and wedging its back under the knob. She chewed on her lip as she backed away form the door hoping it would hold.

"If you were a wife I would not have to leave my own home to find peace." She heard him yell at the door. "If you just once in all this time came to my bed instead of making me crawl to yours I would not have gone."

Ellen turned from the door determined not to cry. She would not, she told herself, she would not let him know how badly he hurt her. She went to the cupboard and started yanking out clothes, throwing the robes to the floor, only saving her Muggle clothing. She would have no reason to keep anything from this world; she would leave and not look back.

She heard the chair crash behind her and spun around to see him leaning against the door-frame.

"Did you think your pitiful attempts could keep me out?" He smirked, and then saw the pile of clothes on the floor and the smaller pile on the bed. "What is this?"

"I am packing." She turned away from him. "Why are you acting surprised? I've told you every day for the past two weeks I am leaving. What did you think I was doing? Trying to trick you?"

"You have no further need for the robes I see," he said, feeling his stomach turn as he watched her throw the robes and cloaks he had purchased for her in a heap on the floor.

"Once this is over between us I will have no place in this world. None of your high and mighty friends talk to me now. How do you think it will be if I am on my own? Do you think they want a single Muggle in this damned place?"

"Ellen, if this is about the baby…"

"Stop," she screamed at him, "don't say it, don't. You can have your divorce now. After all, I am useless in this fucking world. You said so yourself."

"I never said…" his voice tapered off as he remembered how he had screamed at her in fear and anger when his son had toppled down the stairs, and her...a Muggle having no way to stop him from landing on the stone floor.

"No, you never had to, you said enough before. You told me I was…" She turned and pushed past him to leave the room, unable to finish. "I buried him and you at the same time. I am done with this, I can't do this anymore."

"He was my son too." He spat out as he grabbed her elbow roughly. "Do you think I wanted this?"

"You never said you wanted him, not once did you act like you wanted him, and you told me often enough you didn't want me." She pulled against him angrily. "Sometimes I think it is better this way, to have him dying rather than have a father that does not want him and stuck in a world where he was hated because of what he was. A filthy Mud-Blood, isn't that what he was called? For a week he lay in St. Mungo's. Not once did you come, not once."

Severus pushed her away from him and looked at her coldly. "Leave, I will send your belongings to you," he said flatly, looking at her with eyes that no longer showed any emotion.

"Keep them." She walked to the door, only to pause when she opened it. "I will be out of your way tonight. I'm not coming back. I can send for my things…or throw them out. I don't care anymore. The papers are on your desk. Just sign them."

As the door closed behind her, he strode to the desk and picked up the Writ of Divorce. Taking up the quill, and dipping the tip in the ink she had set out waiting for him, he quickly signed his name and watched as the parchment glowed yellow and disappeared, magically ending their four-year marriage.

He lifted his hand to his eyes, covering them and then pinched the bridge of his nose, swallowing hard as he felt the stinging of tears. He knew where she had gone, where she had gone every night for the last six months.

She would sit at the grave until she could cry no more, only tonight she would not make her way slowly into the dungeons and quietly sneak into her bedroom so as not to wake him.

Tonight, he thought, she would not find more tears waiting for her in her pillow. He would not sit up in his own bedroom and listen for the click of the door, or the soft muted sounds of her cries, telling him that she was safely home. He would not have to lose sleep while he paced, waiting for the sound of her sobs to stop, and to know that she finally slept. He would not have to wait up to quietly sneak into her room and pull her covers snug to keep the cold at bay.

He would be alone again, and able to enjoy his solitude.

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**A/N: I posted a short quite similar to this some time ago but took it down to rework. If it sounds familiar that could be why…however since it had very few readers I rather think you have not seen it**.

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